"Oh, yes," said the old woman, "we have ghosts inside the house and out of it too. Did you mark that big old oak, as you rode up to the door? They say there's a ghost lives inside it, of some man who was murdered under its branches years gone by. How he do groan at night sometimes! It has been the same ever since we came here. At first I could not sleep for listening to him, and thinking what a pain he was in: just like the pains of souls in purgatory." This remark made Jack suspect that his hosts were Romanists. He could hear very little more about the ghost in the old oak, but he promised next morning to examine the tree, and ascertain in which part of it the spirit resided. "You had better let he alone," observed the old man; "these sort of gentry don't like anybody to come and pry after them. That's what I think; and so I have let them alone, and he has never come to do me any harm." The guide and the two old people talked on for a considerable time; but gradually to Jack's ears their voices grew less and less distinct, till his head dropped on the table, and he fell fast asleep. How long he had been asleep he could not tell, but when he awoke he found himself stretched on a pile of straw in a corner of the great hall, so it appeared to him, but no light was burning, and it was with difficulty he could distinguish objects by means of the streaks of moonlight which came through the chinks of the shutters. He had not been many minutes awake before he heard voices. They were certainly not those of the old people or of Burdale, and they appeared to come from below him. He listened attentively. He had no doubt that they were human voices he heard; in earnest conversation, too. Now high, now low; now the voice was that of a strong, hale man; now that of one shaking with age; now of a bold, eager youth; now several seemed to be speaking together. The tales he had heard that night recurred to his mind. Could it be possible that these were the spirits of the departed owners of the Hagg? Again he listened, to assure himself that he had not been misled by fancy. He sat up and rubbed his eyes--still the voices reached his ears. He was constitutionally brave. "I will not be mocked by real ghosts or pretended spirits," he said to himself, springing to his feet. He felt for his weapons. His pistols were in his belt and his knife was by his side. He looked about him, and ascertained the position of the doors in the room. "I can find my way to the top of the stairs which I saw led down into the vaults below," he said to himself, "and I can easily grope my way down-stairs, and find out what these ghosts really are."